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The SEC as Prosecutor and Judge

The agency is dodging the courts by turning to its own administrative law judges to decide its cases.

By

Russell G. Ryan

Aug. 4, 2014 7:36 p.m. ET

A year after vowing to take more of its law-enforcement cases to trial, Securities and Exchange Commission officials now say the agency will increasingly bypass courts and juries by prosecuting wrongdoers in hearings before SEC administrative law judges, also known as ALJs. "I think you'll see that more and more in the future," SEC Enforcement Director Andrew Ceresney told a June gathering of Washington lawyers, adding that insider trading cases were especially likely to go before administrative judges.